Dental Implants

A dental implant is the best replacement option to a natural tooth.

If you've lost a tooth, had a tooth taken out or have a series of missing teeth and you may be seeking a permanent replacement option.

A dental implant is great way to not only replace the natural look of your lost tooth or teeth but also restore their functionality.

There are many reasons to seek out this dental treatment. You may have a front teeth that you no long wish to be visibly missing or you may wish to no longer wear a denture or have a missing back tooth that you've lost and it has been affecting your chewing – so you want to be able to chew a bit better, these are the ideal scenario’s to choosing a dental implant.

What are dental implants?

A dental implants are a metal fixture made of titanium that that gets inserted into your jawbone, and acts as an anchor for a porcelain crown to fill the missing gap. If you have a missing tooth or missing area of teeth, they are designed to replace your tooth, it's kind of like a bionic tooth.

Who makes a good candidate for a dental implant?

It’s important to note that not everyone can get a dental implant. The most important aspect of deciding on candidacy is bone. If you don't have bone, the implant cannot affix itself into anything. It's like trying to put a nail into a wall that has no stud.

Not having bone does not necessarily mean you cannot have an implant. It just means things become a bit more complicated and will require the skills and attention of a dental specialist. In circumstance where there is no bone and you are the right candidate for bone grafting, A specialist will take bone from one location in your mouth and transfer it to the location where you implant is needed to anchor it in place.

Other issues may not make you an ideal candidate for dental implants and they include:

Medical issues such as gum disease or diabetes
Your sinus level
Your smoking status

The dental implant process

To begin with, there is a lot of preliminary work to decide whether you are a good candidate for the procedure. We will a schedule dental appointment to take molds of your teeth, photos, scans and x-rays of your mouth to analyse and determine what can be done.

If you are a good candidate, From there, we will measure-up and determine what kind and size of implant would be appropriate to fit in your space.

The next step in the process is a surgical appointment. It is where you would come-in, have sterile draping placed around you and place the implant itself. The procedure take around 45 minutes in total and it is where we open up the gum, drill several pilot holes, place the implant and tighten. Once the implant is placed, we then stitch your gums up again and you are able to walk out feeling normal. It is a very similar feeling to have a filling done.

From a pain perspective, we provide you with some pain relief, though most people don’t feel too much pain afterwards. Usually it is the extraction that happened that left you with a gap in the first place that hurts a lot more than actual implant going-in.

So now the implant is in, what’s next?

When we place the implant, we typically don’t close the implant over entirely. Usually the head of the implants sits out and the gum heals neatly around that. From there, around three months (12 weeks) later, we take a scan to see how well the implant has healed and been accepted by your body. If your implant has stabilised nicely, it is at this point where we also make preparations for a crown, bridge or denture to be fabricated for you.

Once the prosthesis has been made, it is about scheduling a final appointment to have it placed.

Implants take multiple appointments and can need months of planning before the implant can be completed. Every patient is different and this process might be quicker for some. To summarise the process from consultation to completion,

2 initial planning and workup appointments
An appointment for inserting the implant itself
A review appointment
A crown appointment

Typically speaking, it takes around five or six appointments and takes a typical timeframe of around three to four months from beginning to end.

How dental implants work

Implants work by integrating into your bones. They're made out of 100% commercial grade pure titanium. The reason why this is important is that bone loves titanium. Once inserted, bone will continue to grow on the surface of the implant and after twelve weeks, the bone will have grown all the way to the base surface.

Once the bone is integrated, it is then able to bear load for actions such as chewing, and so it is at this stage that a crown, bridge or denture is affixed so that it act and look like a natural tooth or set of teeth.

Dental Implant Risks

It is possible to get 'failure' of an implant. An implant is a foreign body and we hope that your body doesn't react like to it thinking it's a foreign body and we hope that your body accepts it. This for some people however is sometimes not the case and your body can reject it. Unfortuantely, we are able to know whether this will happen until the implant is placed. So if you've had the implant put in and after a while it might not take the bone might disappear, your implant may become loose and fall out or you might get an infection.

Frequently Asked Questions Quick fire Q&As on Dental Implants.

How many years do dental implant lasts?

We have really good data to say implants are 96% successful over 10 years. So you can guarantee that 96 out of 100 cases will last at least 10 years.

Can I get an implant if I have receding gums?

Yes you can, you may need some gum grafting before-hand. Sometimes we have receding gums it means you don't have that nice, thick gum that we like to have around implants that protect our implant. That is when you could potentially need a procedure called a Connective-Tissue Graft or CT Graft, where they take a bit of gum from the roof of your mouth and graft it over to where your implant is going to be. Once that graft takes, you can have the implant procedure or sometimes this is done simultaneously where the implant is placed and then the graft is done on the same day. This is usually a specialist treatment option.

Should I go overseas for dental implants / dental holidays? Are there risks?

Please don't go overseas for any dental treatment. The main thing is you don't know anything about the sterilization procedures and what what they do. They don't have the same standards as Australia does and there is a reason why it does cost a lot less. It's not just because it's not it's not because of the labor cost, the cost also relates to the quality side of things, as well.

We have unfortunately seen a lot of dental implants that have been done pretty poorly overseas. When these implants fail, you don't just lose the implant, you lose a whole lot of bone and the ability to even try and have another implant placed. It can be catastrophic.

Can two teeth be placed on one dental implant?

Yes, two teeth can be put on one implant. It's not a conventional thing to do, but if they're two small teeth and it's a small space, we can certainly put two teeth on one implant.

Once the implants is being placed, do gums grow around the implant?

The gum will reshape itself around the implant and usually in a nice circumferential way and mimic normal gum. If you have that pointy gum between your teeth that's missing already however, your implant won't make that pointy gum come back and you might end up with what we call ‘black triangle’ in a space between the teeth. This is because that is what you had in the first place – unless you have grafting.

Do you have to go to hospital for implants and can you be put to sleep for the procedure?

Typically, most dental implants are placed whilst you are awake and at a local dental practice as it doesn’t take a very long amount of time to perform the procedure. If you would prefer to be put to sleep, then you’ll have a referral to go to a dental specialist and go to hospital to have your implant placed.

Can you have a dental implant years after you've had a tooth knocked out or extracted?

It depends on the position of your tooth. So if it's your very front tooth, that's very difficult and challenging to put an implant in – if you've had an extraction or not knocked out tooth, five years or even one year ago because the bone disappears really quickly and thins out near the front.

But if it's a back tooth and he lost at twenty five years ago in the lower part of your jaw at the back, usually that's fine. The bone doesn't tend to disappear so quickly and you can definitely have an implant in that area.

Can you be too old for implants?

No, you can never be too old for implants. As long as you have bone and you are healthy individual, implants for all ages. There is an exception to this - you can be too young for implants. We generally don't like putting implants in anyone under the age of 25. You're still technically growing, and your jaw is technically changing continuously.

Are Dental Implants safe?

Yes, dental implants are safe made out of the same materials that are made for hip replacements. There is plenty of data and research on those materials and they're nice and safe.

Do dental implants affect speech?

Yes, but for the better. Dental implants should actually improve your speech. Generally, they by closing gaps improves the way you talk. A dental implant is designed to mimic a real tooth, sometimes they can be a tiny bit bulkier on the inside, but generally not enough to affect speech.

Does health insurance cover the cost of an implant?

Health insurance does not cover the total cost of an implant, but it certainly will cover towards an implant. As an implant can take a few months to complete the whole impact procedure, you may be to time the procedure to spread your cost over two financial / calendar years to maximize your health benefits.

How long is the recovery period for getting an implant?

It depends on how extensive your implant surgery has had to be. If you already had a good amount of bone and you implant was fairly straight-forward, your recovery period is pretty quick. It's usually just about a week when you only just feel a bit of tenderness in the area. So the first day you might feel a bit sore – so taking paracetamol and ibuprofen. The next day you feel better within a week, stitches have come out and you feel pretty much back to normal.